Arthur threw himself off his horse and ran to Guinevere. He caught her in his arms and we heard her laugh as he whirled her about. “My flowers!” she cried, putting a hand to her head, and Arthur let her gently down, then knelt to kiss the hem of her robe.
Then he stood and turned. “Sansum!”
“Lord?”
“You can marry us now.”
Sansum refused. He folded his arms over his dirty black robe and tilted up his stubborn mouse face. “You are betrothed, Lord,” he insisted nervously.
I thought Sansum was being noble, but in truth it had all been arranged. Sansum had not come with us at Tewdric’s bidding, but at Arthur’s, and now Arthur’s face turned angry at the priest’s stubborn change of heart. “We agreed!” Arthur said, and when Sansum just shook his tonsured head, Arthur touched the hilt of Excalibur. “I could take the skull off your shoulders, priest.”
“Martyrs are ever made by tyrants, Lord,” Sansum said, dropping to his knees in the flowery grass where he bent his head to bare the grubby nape of his neck. “I’m coming to you, O Lord,” he bawled towards the grass, “Thy servant! Coming to Thy glory, oh praise Thee! I see the gates of heaven open! I see the angels waiting for me! Receive me, Lord Jesus, into Thy blessed bosom! I’m coming! I’m coming!”
“Be quiet and get up,” Arthur said tiredly.
Sansum squinted slyly up at Arthur. “You won’t give me the bliss of heaven, Lord?”
“Last night,” Arthur said, ‘you agreed to marry us. Why do you refuse now?”
Sansum shrugged. “I have wrestled with my conscience, Lord.”
Arthur understood and sighed. “So what is your price, priest?”
“A bishopric,” Sansum said hurriedly, struggling to his feet.
“I thought you had a Pope who grants bishoprics,” Arthur said. “Simplicius? Isn’t that his name?”
“The most blessed and holy Simplicius, may he still live in health,” Sansum agreed, ‘but give me a church, Lord, and a throne in the church, and men will call me bishop.”
“A church and a chair?” Arthur asked. “Nothing more?”
“And the appointment to be King Mordred’s chaplain. I must have that! His sole and personal chaplain, you understand? With an allowance from the treasury sufficient for me to keep my own steward, doorkeeper, cook and candle man He brushed grass off his black gown. “And a laundress,” he added hastily.
“Is that all?” Arthur asked sarcastically.
“A place on Dumnonia’s council,” Sansum said as though it were trivial. “That’s all.”
“Granted,” Arthur said carelessly. “So what do we do to get married?”
While these negotiations were being consummated I was watching Guinevere. There was a look of triumph on her face, and no wonder for she was marrying far above her poor father’s hopes. Her father, slack mouth trembling, was watching in abject terror in case Sansum should refuse to perform the ceremony, while behind Leodegan stood a dumpy wee girl who seemed to be in charge of Guinevere’s quartet of leashed deer hounds and what little baggage the exiled royal family possessed. The dumpy girl, it turned out, was Gwenhwyvach, Guinevere’s younger sister. There was a brother, too, though he had long since retired to a monastery on the wild coast of Strath Clota where strange Christian hermits competed to grow their hair, starve on berries and preach salvation to the seals.
There was little enough ceremony to the marriage. Arthur and Guinevere stood beneath his banner while Sansum spread his arms to say some prayers in the Greek tongue, then Leodegan drew his sword and touched his daughter’s back with the blade before handing the weapon to Arthur as a sign that Guinevere had passed from her father’s authority to her husband’s. Sansum then scooped some water from the stream and sprinkled it over Arthur and Guinevere, saying that thereby he was cleansing them of sin and receiving them into the family of the Holy Church that hereby recognized their union as one and indissoluble, sacred before God and dedicated to the procreation of children. Then he stared at each of us guards in turn and demanded that we declare that we had witnessed the solemn ceremony. We all made the declaration and Arthur was so happy that he did not hear the reluctance in our voices, though Guinevere did. Nothing escaped Guinevere. “There,” Sansum said when the paltry ritual was done, ‘you’re married, Lord.”